Carla Muller has always written from the heart, and with the release of two deeply personal new songs – “That Tree” and “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” – the Woolwich, Ontario singer-songwriter invites listeners into the most sacred corners of her life: her relationships with her sisters. Both tracks are available now via Canterbury Music Company, and together they form an extraordinary emotional diptych – a celebration of resilience, devotion, and the fierce, unbreakable bonds of sisterhood.
“That Tree,” co-written with the late Sean Cunnington, is a song born from a true story that has lived rent-free in Muller’s memory for decades. Her older sister Erika once climbed a towering oak tree as a young girl, fell thirty feet, and – in a feat of sheer, breathtaking grit – got up and walked home. Then, just four months later, when her bicycle was stolen, she jumped onto Carla’s bike – flat tires and all – and chased the adult thief down the street until she returned with both bicycles in tow. “I still remember how proud Erika looked, walking our two bikes back to where I sat waiting, stunned,” Muller recalls. The song distils that lifelong awe into something luminous and universal, transforming one girl’s extraordinary stubbornness into a roadmap for anyone who has ever stared up at an impossibly high branch: “I know that branch / Seems out of reach / But you’ve gotta try / If you’re gonna climb that tree.”
For journalists covering stories of women’s resilience, the power of chosen and blood family, or the art of narrative songwriting, “That Tree” offers a rare and irresistible angle – a love letter written sideways, from a little sister too overwhelmed by admiration to say these words out loud until she set them to music.
“Everything’s Gonna Be Alright,” co-written with Scott Metcalfe, carries a weight that is both joyful and heartbreaking in equal measure. Muller wrote it in 2008, when her younger sister lay in a coma for nineteen days, and Carla sat beside her, singing it again and again into the silence. The doctors suggested that Francine likely couldn’t hear her. She woke up and immediately asked what that beautiful song was. “So, I’ll stay and watch you while you sleep / Here in the darkness of this night / But I know this must be true / God is watching over you / And everything’s gonna be alright” – these words, first sung in a hospital room, ultimately became her own, a song she knew by heart and carried with her always. Francine passed away suddenly in October 2024 from a heart condition, and Muller played the song at her funeral, singing her baby sister to sleep one final time. The story behind this recording – completed while Francine was still alive and thrilled it had made the album – is the kind of profound, human detail that transcends music journalism and speaks to anyone who has ever loved someone fiercely and imperfectly.
Produced at Canterbury Music Company by Muller and Scott Metcalfe, in collaboration with veteran engineers Jeremy Darby and Julian Decorte, both songs carry the warmth and craftsmanship that have defined Muller’s creative home for the past five years. Working alongside an extraordinary roster of Canadian musical talent – including Jason Fowler, Rob Piltch, Burke Carroll, Drew Jurecka, Sam Clarke, Ross MacIntyre and many others – Muller has developed a singular sound rooted in acoustic intimacy and cinematic storytelling. The co-writing relationship with Sean Cunnington, whose memory also inspired “Beautiful Day” on ‘Paper Stars,’ lends “That Tree” an especially poignant dimension, honouring both the sister who inspired it and the collaborator who helped bring it to life.
For Muller, these songs represent the fullest expression of her artistic philosophy: she writes for the people she loves, drawing on the specific and the lived-in to illuminate something far larger. Where many artists reach for the universal by stripping away detail, Muller doubles down – a ten-speed Schwinn bicycle, a rose-coloured velvet rocking chair, a girl who didn’t know her name after a fall but walked home anyway. These are the textures of real life, and in Muller’s hands they become something extraordinarily moving. Both tracks sit within her landmark dual album release – ‘In Between’ and ‘Paper Stars’ – available now via M.I.C. Music Productios, a body of work that announces her as one of Canada’s most compelling and authentic voices in the singer-songwriter tradition.
Carla Muller lives in Woolwich, Ontario with her husband Tom and their three children, and writes with the conviction of someone who knows exactly what – and who – matters most. “I write from my heart, for the people I love, and for myself – past and present,” she says. “It’s a good place to be.” “That Tree” and “Everything’s Gonna Be Alright” are out now. Both songs are destined to find the people who need them most.
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